


all nearness pauses, while a star can grow

by sophiegaladheon



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Anxiety, Anxiety Attacks, Gen, Pre-Canon, Unreliable Narrator
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-18
Updated: 2019-01-18
Packaged: 2019-10-12 09:26:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,315
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17464865
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sophiegaladheon/pseuds/sophiegaladheon
Summary: Of course he’s nervous—nervous is seemingly his natural state of being.  Yuuko has known him for years now, she should know that.  The minute he thinks it, he feels bad.  He knows she is just trying to be helpful; she is one of the kindest people he knows.  But that doesn’t mean he wants to talk about it.Yuuri is preparing to make his Junior Grand Prix debut.  His anxiety doesn't make the process any easier.





	all nearness pauses, while a star can grow

**Author's Note:**

> My contribution to the Ice Speculation Zine! I wanted to explore Yuuri's early career, and how his anxiety might have impacted him skating competitively as a teenager.
> 
> The title is from the poem 'all nearness pauses, while a star can grow' by e. e. cummings.

The Ice Castle is quiet except for the sound of his blades on the ice and the faint hum of voices from the front office as Nishigori-san finishes up the bookkeeping for the day, all blurring into incoherence and the thud of his pulse in his ears as he runs through the final spin of his free program. Transitioning through the last few steps of choreography and hitting the final pose he pauses—chest heaving, arm still flung emphatically to the ceiling—letting the rush of endorphins sparkle and cheer, exclaiming with delight for just a moment. 

“Yuuri!” The shout rings out through the rink, and he relaxes his pose to turn to see the blurry silhouette of Yuuko standing at the boards. The returning equilibrium brings with it the usual list of self-critical analysis, neatly picking apart his performance until it is nothing but an assortment of substandard component parts (he still can’t land that triple axel cleanly, and what was up with that step sequence, that’s usually his forte). The familiar knot that’s been growing and growing in his stomach over the last few weeks is back and as undeniable as ever.

“Yuuri,” Yuuko calls again and he hurries over, embarrassed to have been caught standing and staring dumbly. “That was beautiful,” she says as he slides up to the boards, “but isn’t about time you headed home? It’s getting late.”

“Ah, I’m sorry,” he says, now flushed from embarrassment as well as exertion. The Ice Castle is so generous, allowing him to skate as much as they do, and he hates how he feels like it must be an imposition, even if no one ever says anything.

Yuuko just smiles. “It’s no worry. I was just helping Takeshi tidy up the locker rooms and thought you might have lost track of time.” She lays a comforting hand over his gloved one, stilling the thumb that had been picking restlessly at the battered plastic that topped the boards. “Are you nervous?” she asks.

Yuuri gave a non-committal nod. Of course he’s nervous—nervous is seemingly his natural state of being. Yuuko has known him for years now, she should know that. The minute he thinks it, he feels bad. He knows she is just trying to be helpful; she is one of the kindest people he knows. But that doesn’t mean he wants to talk about it.

The JGP, skating in competition—sometimes it feels like his anxieties are too big and too small at the same time. Objectively, he knows they are small things, trivial when compared to the hardships faced by others, yet paradoxically it feels like voicing them would cause his fears to grow and swell at an unstoppable rate, until he is swept away and drowned in the undertow. And so he does his best to keep his runaway thoughts wrapped in neat little boxes, tied with the ribbon of hours in Minako-sensei’s studio and countless compulsory figures. 

Yuuko takes his non-answer as answer enough, and gives Yuuri’s hand a reassuring squeeze. “You’re going to be amazing, Yuuri. I’ve seen you practice, I know how great your programs are.” Her smile widens and Yuuri can see the rink lights reflecting in her eyes. “You’ve worked so hard for this and I know everyone is so proud of you. Even Takeshi, even though he’s being a stupid teenage boy and doesn’t want to say it. But you earned this, and you are going to go and show the Grand Prix Series just how amazing you are. And I can’t wait to watch it on the old TV in the locker room.” 

Yuuri bites his lip and manages a small smile. “Thank you, Yuuko,” he says.

He manages to keep up the smile as he steps off the ice and takes off his skates, nodding along to Yuuko’s cheerful chatter as he works through his cooldown stretches. He sends another half-grin at her and Nishigori as they part ways in front of the Ice Castle, him on his way back home and them on yet another of what both parties vehemently insist are not dates, but merely dinners at the ramen stand with a friend. 

Only when the happy couple have turned the far corner does he allow his expression to fall, reaching up under his glasses to rub at the headache forming behind his eyes. Taking a long drink from his water bottle, and suddenly feeling every bruise and blister and ache, Yuuri heads for home, Yuuko’s words still ringing in his ears. 

It was all terribly kind of her to say—she always had been so terribly kind to him, even though she didn’t have to be—but the self-critical part of his brain is incapable of letting the compliments sit. Instead, like the components of his performance before, Yuuko’s kind words are picked apart and critiqued, with ruthless and unsparing counterarguments to each of her claims. 

His programs, Yuuri knows, are very good. Minako-sensei choreographed them, after all, and they play to his strengths. He also knows that, from a technical standpoint, they don’t have the base value to compete with the best in the world. That’s his own fault. He hasn’t been able to nail down the triple axel and he isn’t anywhere close to having a quad. And he needs both those things if he wants to compete against the best in the world. _If he wants to compete with Viktor_ , whispers a voice in the back of his mind.

Yuuri shakes his head, scrubbing his hand through hair now stiff with sweat and stuck to his forehead. Of course he wants to compete with Viktor. But right now that dream seems so distant it doesn’t bear thinking about.

The sun is low in the sky by the time Yuuri reaches the door of Yu-topia, shadows stretched long on the paving stones. His mother greets him as he removes his shoes, a cheerful smile on her face despite the tray of dirty dishes in her arms. Yuuri can smell the wonderful scents of his father’s home cooking, savory and fried, and his mouth waters, gut churning with disappointment. 

His feelings must show on his face, as his mother laughs, balancing the laden tray on one arm as she reaches out to pat his cheek. “Don’t look so sad, Yuuri,” she says, “You can have katsudon when you win a medal. Just a few more days now.”

Yuuri manages a weak smile before rushing off to shower, gut now back to churning with anxiety instead of hunger. He drops his sweaty workout clothes haphazardly on the floor as he strips, before his manners reassert themselves and he picks up his things and drops them in the laundry. The water from the shower is almost too hot as he scrubs away dried sweat, but it feels good on his bruises and sore muscles. The soap makes the cuts and blisters on his feet sting and the steam is thick in the air. It’s getting hard to breathe so Yuuri turns the water off.

He shoves Yuuko and his mother’s words into little boxes as hard as he can, and does his best to think about anything else as he dresses in clean clothes and mechanically downs the bland, coach-dictated balanced meal his father kindly prepared for him.

The familiar texture of the tatami mats is a grounding presence through the thin cotton of his socks and Yuuri focuses on it as he eats, tracing the tips of his toes back and forth. The rough slide of his feet on the pale straw mats is comforting, solid as he walks slowly back to his bedroom. Not the same feeling as when he’s on the ice, but it’ something, almost. Only reflex now carries him to his door as everything grows more and more unreal, static intensifying, contents of the little boxes pushing against the restrictions, the connection between the balls of his feet and the tatami mats the only thing anchoring him to reality. 

He slides his door open too loudly, the noise eliciting a whine from Vicchan, woken from his nap curled up on Yuuri’s bed. He tilts his head at him as he shuts the door behind him, before jumping down off the bed, tail wagging. The little boxes crack and dissolve and Yuuri gasps, biting his lip to keep the sound in. He finds himself on the floor next to his bed, cross-legged, with his poodle curling in his lap and himself curling around his dog, eyes shut tight, face and trembling fingers burying into his fur.

Yuuko’s smile, the squeeze of his hand, his mother’s quiet encouragement, the words running through his mind like a ticker tape on repeat _. . . Amazing . . . you earned this . . . everyone is so proud of you . . . when you win a medal . . ._ An errant tear escapes from behind his eyelids and soaks into Vicchan’s fur. Everyone is so kind, has so much faith in him and in his skating when he has done nothing to deserve it. Even the JSF must inextricably believe that he can do well, to have given him the JGP assignments in the first place.

All those smiles, all that pride bear down on him until he’s gasping, fingers aching and stiff, as the inescapable knowledge that he is going to fall, and fail, and disappoint everyone etches itself into his brain, like lines on the ice when he practices compulsory figures.

Slowly, gradually, the looming catastrophe is pushed back as Yuuri grows aware of Vicchan squirming in his arms. Carefully, one finger at a time, he releases his hold and slowly pets an apology to his puppy and he turns, all forgiving, to lick tiny kisses across his cheeks. Measured, even breaths and the springy texture of Vicchan’s fur ground him back in reality and he focuses all his energy on letting himself sink into the tactility of the moment.

There’s a rap at the door. He must’ve made some sort of affirmative noise, since it slides open to reveal Mari with a basket of dirty towels on her hip. Yuuri hopes she can’t tell there are tears under the drying streaks of poodle saliva on his cheeks.

“Do you need any laundry done before you leave?” she asks.

Yuuri looks around his room, neat stacks of clean clothes piled next to the empty suitcases, garment bags with skating costumes and his one good suit hanging on a hook, and shakes his head.

Mari hums. “Thought I’d ask, just in case.” She stands in the doorway in silence a moment more, a silhouette against the darkness of the hallway. Yuuri leans over to switch on the lamp; he hadn’t realized how dark it was, or that he had never turned on the light when he came in. The sudden brightness seems to spur Mari back into motion. She adjusts the basket on her hip. “Don’t worry about Vicchan while you’re gone,” she says, “I’ll look after him for you.”

Yuuri nods. He can’t quite manage a smile, but he means it when he says, “Thank you, Mari.”

She slides the door shut behind her and he can hear her steady, even tread as she moves off down the hallway.

Vicchan climbs out from the tangle of his legs to run a lap around the room before jumping back up on the bed and curling up in a rosette, head resting on his paws. Yuuri lets out a long sigh, half a yawn, and stretches his legs out straight in front of him, still sore from practice and stiff from prolonged stillness. The fabric of his blanket is scratchy against his neck as he leans back and his eyes ache when he reaches under his glasses to rub away the last remnants of tears.

The lamp throws the room into sharp contrasts, deep shadows lurking in the corners and behind the furniture and piles of luggage. Yuuri looks up, away from the darkness and reminders of what is to come. The walls are cast in a soft glow, Viktor Nikiforov’s familiar features peering out of officially-licensed merchandise. Dozens of figures—frozen mid-jump or spin or step sequence, or neatly trimmed from some magazine ad campaign—all presented in a carefully curated panorama of admiration and ambition.

Yuuri’s eye is drawn, perhaps inevitably, to one of the oldest posters in his collection, one of his favorites. It’s from the Junior World Championships, the first time Yuuri saw Viktor skate. The photographer had captured Viktor in the middle of his choreographic sequence, long hair streaming behind him. Yuuri stares at it now and manages, just for a moment, to remember that feeling, his heart slowing and his breath coming a little easier as the memory of sitting in the Ice Castle locker room with Yuuko and Nishigori, Viktor breathtaking on the old TV, runs through his mind.

_I want to skate on the same ice as Viktor_ , he thinks, _that’s what I’ve been working towards_. The graceful figure on the poster does not reply, frozen, face serene. _I’m so far behind and who knows if I’ll ever get there. But I want to skate with Viktor one day_. Yuuri takes a deep breath and squares his shoulders, gaze drifting from fifteen-year-old Viktor to the clothes and suitcases sitting in a pile on his bedroom floor. The garment bags hang quietly on their hook, costumes concealed inside.

_I am going to skate in the Junior Grand Prix_. The knot in his stomach starts to twist and tighten again, and he hastily backs away from that thought. _I am going to skate on the same ice as Viktor one day_. That sits better, he can almost believe that. He tries it again, jaw set. _I am going to skate on the same ice as Viktor one day. And this is the first step_.


End file.
